


Family Resemblance

by girl_wonder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-28
Updated: 2011-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-19 20:45:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_wonder/pseuds/girl_wonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's first three years of life. Spoilers for In the Beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Resemblance

John was the type of father she'd always known he would be: he groaned and rolled out of bed at night when Dean started crying. He changed diapers. He warmed the milk on the stove, and remembered to check it against his wrist before settling Dean in his arms to nurse at the bottle. He knew baby songs and nursery rhymes.

Mary turned away when her son cried at night. She felt drained and dry, almost brittle. She was sure, positive that this was what he'd wanted – that she had bargained away not her life, but this little life in John's arms. In their tiny kitchen, John swayed back and forth, the light catching on his skin and Mary wanted to reach out, take their son from him, put him in his crib, because she knew, she just _knew_ that she'd lost that chance of happiness before she could even touch it.

When John tried to hand her their son, his eyes shut and breathing so shallow that it didn't look like his chest rose or fell at all, she backed away, took the keys from the hook near the door and was already on the 70 before she realized that she couldn't stay at home. She cried when she pulled off on the shoulder of the interstate.

She cried because Dean reminded her of her mother, who'd always wanted grandchildren, and he reminded her of her father, who thought normal would never be enough for her. She cried because Dean reminded her of John: so innocent when she wrapped her arms around him, so innocent when she dragged him into a life that would leave him just another victim of things that go bump in the night.

*****

Sometimes when he was serious, Mary was sure that Dean understood exactly what she was saying.

"And then when you're done," she said, dusting the flour off her fingers, "you wait."

Dean looked up, a string of gibberish phonemes and a grin that he didn't get from his father. It looked like a knowing grin, a cocky grin. Picking him up, she settled her son on her hip, and brushed some of the flour out of his hair.

His hands clutched at her shirt, fingers digging a little into her skin.

"Ouch," she said, pulling one of his hands off and kissing it. "Mommy has to cut your nails, since Daddy forgot."

Again he smiled, that innocent grin, and she hoped that she saw years under it, decades of awareness, decades of living and being alive and being cocky and being her son.

Someone knocked at the door, and Mary dipped Dean once before answering. He was still giggling when the woman on the other side said, "Hello!"

Mary turned to look at the woman, turned away from the image of her son this happy. "Can I help you?"

Wednesdays were the only days she had just to herself, the only days when it was just her and Dean and not the play group or the knitting circle or the mother's group or John and his poker buddies. The woman tried to hand her a pamphlet, and behind her, a man in a suit smiled gently.

"What a beautiful son you have," the woman said.

Dean's hair was so light, it looked almost blonde, and Mary touched one of his curls instead of taking the flyer.

"My name is Deborah," the woman said, slipping the pamphlet back into a folder. "This is Pastor Ronald. We're from Lawrence Community Church, just down the street."

The man kept glancing upwards, and Mary didn't need to check to know what he was looking at.

"I'm sorry," Mary said. "We don't attend church."

"At all?" Deborah asked. She glanced up, too, to the doorframe.

"No," Mary said. "Thanks for coming by."

"You should at least think of your son's soul," Pastor Ronald said, suddenly.

With a sigh, Mary said, "You have a nice day, now."

The kitchen was clean and warm, and for a moment, she just held Dean in the light from the window. At the right angle, you could see the saltwater runes she'd painted on the window. John had never asked.

He'd never asked about the symbols carved over their doorway either. He didn't ask her about a lot of things, and there was so much in her life she was grateful for, but that was at the top of the list. Touching her finger to a small pile of flour, she began to trace something on Dean's forehead.

It was something so natural: she remembered her mother doing it whenever she made a pie. "Food for the stomach, safety for the soul. Love for the family."

When John came home, she was feeding Dean, had already washed the flour off his forehead. Taking the baby spoon from her, he handed her a flyer.

"Taped to our door," he said, dryly. His expression was amused.

She'd never understood what it took for him to come back from Vietnam whole and sane, but sometimes he surprised her still with his ability to laugh. The pink piece of paper advertised services and Sunday school at 11 a.m.

"You think we should mend our godless ways?" she asked, tossing the pamphlet in the trash.

"Oh, I don't know," John said. He was grinning, an open smile that she loved almost as much as Dean's. "I kind of like living with a heathen."

Behind her, the oven timer began to ring over her laughter.

*****

When Dean began talking in complete sentences, she knew he was going to be a handful. John stopped eating one evening and turned to stare at him, as Dean began saying that his father was eating mashed potatoes and beans and carrots and brown.

"Steak, sweetie," Mary said.

There was never a point that she ceased to be amazed by Dean, but she adapted to being smugly proud.

*****

There were too many games from her own childhood that she'd never teach Dean. She'd never teach Dean about Salt the Ghost, she'd never teach him Spot the Shifter.

In the end, she taught him one game, though, the one her mother had taught her.

Hide and find was easy to play, he understood immediately what the goal was. He hid, squirming into impossibly small cabinets and she found him. She learned to think like he did: he liked corner cabinets, he liked the laundry room. At first his giggles gave him away, but she taught him early on that it was a quiet game.

If she couldn't find him in ten minutes, she shouted, "Uncle!"

It only happened a couple of times, but each time he came flying out from his hiding place and she'd tickle him until her they both laughed. If she couldn't find her son then nothing could, no demon, no werewolf, no burglar.

Only once, once, in the whole time they played the game did he fail to come out when she called the codeword.

"Uncle!" she screamed again, checking under the bed, under his crib, behind the refrigerator. "Uncle, Dean!"

John came home, and looked at her with wide eyes. "You were playing, _what_?"

"Just help me, John," she said. Mary kept her hands steady and began methodically checking each room. She knew she was crying, and angrily wiped at her face.

Frowning, John went into their bedroom and came out, said, "Mary."

She followed him to their laundry hamper, where he'd pulled back the first layer of clothes. Dean was asleep, curled fetal and sucking his thumb. She lifted him out and began rocking, still crying.

Confused, John sat next to her, hand on her shoulder.

*****

Dean's favorite toy was his stuffed bear. Mary sewed it back together more and more often as he got older: the ears had each fallen off once, the stomach needed to be patched. It grew ragged and slightly off white, one eye fell off and she replaced it with a black button.

The bear never had a name, even when Dean started talking.

*****

Dean was the one who brought her the phone when she felt the first contractions. He held her arm as she dialed and said, "John? My water just broke."

It was easier than the first time, easier than when she'd been 23 and scared out of her mind at the idea of a small life coming out of her.

"Mommy?" Dean asked. Then, quieter, "Mommy?"

He sounded so scared that she hugged him close and said, "Oh, sweetheart. Everything's going to be fine."

Looking at him, her perfect son, she believed it.

*****

end.


End file.
